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death, it seems, has texture. douma had always imagined it as a clean erasure: a blankness succeeding dissolution, the immaculate cessation of all things. he had not foreseen this—a consciousness adrift in darkness, thick as coagulated ink.
his body is gone; of that he is certain. yet the faint echo of its presence still reverberates somewhere in the mind, as though mere habit sustains the illusion of flesh.
if hell is real and this is it, he ought to be suffering for his sins. engulfed, perhaps, in infernal flame. but no torment arrives.
douma finds himself almost disappointed.
perhaps his conjecture had not been entirely mistaken after all.
against all reason, he feels touch.
a hand lifts him from the void. he knows, with unerring intuition, that it belongs to a woman. her palm cups the back of his head, and warmth comes seeping through, reweaving him into the fabric of sensation. how curious, he thinks, that even here, at the terminus of existence, he can still discern softness.
douma opens his eyes, and the dark breaks.
light floods in, not as brilliance but as colour—an eruption of violet cascading through the void. wisteria blooms around him. no, not petals, but eyes. a pair of irises shimmering where the entire spectrum of violet converges into a singular, triumphant gaze.
ah. he hadn’t expected to see her here. so perhaps this is not hell, after all.
the woman with the butterfly-patterned haori was burdened with a face too lovely for such vitriolic hatred and a frame too slight for war, she’d fought him with a ferocity that defied every expectation. as if that suicidal resolve of hers could tilt the scales of heaven. he recalls the wet gurgling of her breath as her lungs filled with blood, the brittle crack of bone, and still. still, she rose to strike again. the absurd disparity of power in every motion of their combat.
to be fair, douma had never once fought in earnest. not against the flower hashira, not against the two rude children who barged in after. perhaps that was why shinobu lingered in his memory—because she had fought to die, and he, being so above the fray, could not imagine anyone doing so willingly.
and now, the lady of poison and requital is before him once more. her eyes no longer blaze with fury nor dim with grief. the wisteria hue has mellowed into serenity.
shinobu had been distractingly beautiful even while trying to behead him; yet now, absent her murderous glare, she is breathtaking still. he cannot look away. if he still possessed a heart, it might have tripped over itself. something unfurls inside him, slow at first, then wild, multiplying tenfold with each pulse of awareness. the feeling spreads through what remains of him faster than her poison ever did, flooding his thoughts, making his vision shimmer. it seems that his cold dead husk of a heart learns to beat only after it’s physically gone.
it is love, it must be; what else could this be? how blessed! that his first true emotion should be love.
“shinobu-chan,” he murmurs, uncharacteristically shy. “would you… like to go to hell with me?”
the question is foolish, he knows. he killed her sister, after all. he remembers the anguish beneath the anger that flickered across her face when she spoke of kanae, and even now he can sense how deep that wound runs, though her eyes no longer betray it. for a fleeting instant, something pricked him—an unfamiliar sting he could only identify by process of elimination. sorrow, perhaps. yes, sorrow, for on her behalf. another first. fragile and pure as a snowflake settling on ash.
“after you, worthless bastard.”
oh, how gentle she was, even when condemning him! he should feel grateful—after all, few demons are granted the privilege of hearing such a sweet voice at the end of all ends. and he shall receive her scorn as if it were affection.
“then at least,” he ventures, his grin widening, “a kiss before the descent?”
shinobu’s head tilts, a study in slow deliberation. and to his astonishment, she leans in.
her mouth parts invitingly, and he responds without thought.
it is not mimicry this time, not the crude facsimile of intimacy he once enacted out of curiosity. he has kissed many before, but none of those hollow gestures had ever breached the surface of him. this—this is the first kiss that moves him. cleaves through him like sunlight piercing the crust of a frozen pond, thawing the numb, eternal chill within.
she slips her tongue between his lips, tracing the curve of his teeth before sweeping against his own. the sensation startles him: the warm, velvety rub of her tongue, the faint catch of suction as she claims more of him. delving deeper, as though intent on unearthing his very essence. instinct and longing compels him to return in kind.
if he had hands—oh, if he still had hands—he would cup her heart-shaped face, feel the warmth blooming beneath her skin. press his palm to the small of her back until their bodies meshed like two halves of a once-whole thing. hold her close, keep her within reach of his love.
love. douma understands now why humans willingly throw themselves into fire for it. for her, he would burn forever, smiling all the while. what a wondrous thing to be in love!
then she pulls back slightly to catch breath, withdrawing her tongue with the motion. the sudden absence draws a plaintive whine of protest from him. shinobu watches him through her thick lashes, then tilts her chin upward, a silent summons. tentatively, he presses forward again, this time letting his tongue slip into her mouth.
she tastes of wisteria—sweet, floral, with an undertone of bitterness.
he barely has time to savour it before incandescent pain tears through the haze.
she bites through the muscle of his tongue, tearing it clean in half. blood spills between them in a vivid spray, streaking both their faces, catching on her lashes. it trickles down her chin in delicate rivulets, the colour of crushed camellias.
douma thinks she has never looked more beautiful.
shinobu spits the mangled half of his tongue into the void between them; it arcs and falls like a grotesque, fleshy petal. her smile is demure, almost apologetic now.
“you talk too much.”
he cannot help the euphoria that overtakes him. he feels giddy, intoxicated. aroused, even… if only he still had a body, he thinks dimly. there would be a bodily reaction, surely. and how humiliating that would be! humiliation! another addition to his growing collection of newfound sensations.
he almost doesn’t notice when his tongue begins to regenerate, the flesh knitting itself with instinctual ease. he supposes the rest of his body could as well—if he truly wished it—though the notion feels unimportant. better to remain disembodied a little longed if it means shinobu will keep cradling his head like this.
eager to prove that he’s a good sport, he offers his best smile and mouths, i love you.
her smile lingers, calm and inscrutable.
then the ground—or whatever passes for it here—gives way. douma feels himself falling, the darkness yawning wide beneath him. for a moment he thinks she’s let go.
but no. there’s a sharp tug at his scalp. she’s holding him by the hair, his severed head swinging lightly at her side like a pouch, her footsteps echoing faintly through the abyss.